Switching up the background on your video call might help you stay perky, Singapore researchers have found. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, investigated links between the phenomenon known as “videoconferencing fatigue”— exhaustion caused by juggling the real world and the virtual—and the fake backgrounds many of us deploy during work calls to hide clutter, kids or ratty T shirts. (The researchers focused on callers’ own setups, not those of the people they were on with, because—surprise—in video calls, as in life, it’s ourselves we’re most interested in.)
Surveying 610 people who work from home, the researchers found that using a video background put an extra processing load on the brain, and wore callers out. So did blurred backgrounds. To avoid fatigue, they recommend static, in-focus backdrops—especially natural scenes.
Study co-author Heng Zhang, of Nanyang Technological University, says his go-to is a photograph of Yosemite National Park in the United States—a spot he’s visited, and loved. Zhang says the “warm and peaceful scene… greatly uplifts my spirit during long meetings”.
New Zealand Geographic also recommends just taking your laptop to the park.